Mama Bear
by Thefriendlyvandal
Summary: Another alternate story taking place directly after Half Life 3. 1,440 words of pointless fluff and embarrassment. Apparently I like beating up Gordon.
1. Train

Gordon Freeman felt like a wild animal.

For three days, they charged at the Combine, in one final push. He had never seen so much violence in one place in his life- bodies all over the ground, bullets and bombs flying non-stop, buildings falling, the place swarming with people and hunters and blood, and three days felt like a heartbeat and there wasn't a moment where his heart wasn't pumping and his mind wasn't flooded with pain and hate and fear.

And by the time he had done it, he didn't even know he did.

When the world felt silent, Gordon paced in circles, lost in an angry panic, shooting at anything that moved, nerves on high alert. It wasn't over. It couldn't be over. Not like that. Every rustle, an army. Every broken twig, a hunter. The loudest thing he could hear was the rushing of his blood and his heavy, tired breathing.

Something touched his arm.

Gordon whipped around and instinctively brought down his crowbar, throwing a punch with his other hand when it was caught, kicking and thrashing until he hit the ground with the weight on top of him, bucking and biting and spitting when he couldn't get to his weapons, not registering the alarmed shouts and cries of the people (since when were there people here?) around him. It didn't matter if he had done it; _he_ wasn't done fighting.

Then, he heard more people, and _felt_ more people, and before he knew it he was being pinned to the ground as he thrashed in his haze. He heard his name, he heard medics being called.

And the panic he had felt started to overwhelm him.

It was that hot, burning panic Gordon had felt before major exams at MIT, the kind that made you want to curl up and cry and hurt anyone that approached you at the same time. _Oh, god, there were so many voices, no, please, go away, leave me alone-_

And he saw a flicker of her hair.

Not that it registered all the way; that wouldn't sink in until later, much later, when he was awake and alert and sane again. But that was her, pinning him to the ground with nothing but the muscles in her arms, yelling for a medic in response to the obvious confusion and fear in his eyes as he pinned him to the ground.

A needle, stuck in the exposed skin of his upper neck.

" _It's okay, Gordon."_ He fought the darkness enclosing in on him with deadly vigor, feeling his arms grow weak and the adrenaline that had been keeping him awake for the past god-knows-how-long fade away. _"It's okay. I've got you. You're okay."_

His body felt heavy.

Then, nothing.

Out of the blue, he felt rumbling beneath him, and the faint, flickering light of a lantern.

… _Safe?_

Gordon Freeman hadn't felt safe in twenty years.

One of the oddest parts about coming to completely was that he had somehow managed to get to his feet, with some major support from the wall. That was good news. Bad news: He could barley think, couldn't see, had no HEV suit and no weapons.

Not a good situation.

Gordon squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his head against the rumbling wall, trying his best to take inventory of his condition. From what he could tell, there were bandages on his head, and bandages on his hands, and bandages…man, well _that's_ why he hurt everywhere. _Shit._

From outside of the fog came a faint voice he could barley hear.

" _Alyx, your patient is escaping."_

" _Damn it, Gordon, not again."_

He felt arms around him, steadying his shaky body, and suddenly, he was back on the floor, on the mat where he had been sleeping, with blankets pulled over him.

" _You gotta stop gettin' away from me like that, big guy. You're gonna hurt yourself. We're on a train, you know. Not very steady."_

She sounded like she was talking more to herself than to him, but that didn't matter. She was there, and he was safe, and everything was fine.

Well, at least close to fine.

Alyx sat down next to him on the mat, took out a dog-eared book, and flipped it open, reading by the light of flickering lamps. They weren't the only ones, either: all around them were mats and blankets, filling the small space, with people stepping carefully through the haphazard arrangement with care, whispering to one another, determined not to awake their fellow rebels. He tugged lightly on her sleeve, and she looked at him affectionately, maybe a bit with pity for his misery.

" _Woah there, lumberjack. You gotta shave."_ Alyx put her book onto the floor next to her, and ran her hand across his cheek, brushing the unruly stubble with her palm. He smiled weakly in reply as she moved to his head. It really hadn't occurred to Gordon how much _stronger_ she was than him; she was muscular and broad, he was thin and weak. The HEV suit usually made up the difference, but laying here in bed with her, for the first time, it was half-intimidating. He felt so damn _small_ without it on. Exposed. Venerable.

But her being there next to him made him feel safe, in some dumb, idiotic way.

There, in the back of his mind, the word again. _Perfect._

" _Oh, and Gordon, I've got your glasses once you're feeling up to it, okay? Just try to get some rest for now."_ He shot her a look of confusion, although the drugged smile never left his face. Much of what had happened in the past couple days had been mushed together into a mess of fighting, blood, bodies, and pain.

" _A doctor saw you. They said rest, and gave you some meds. You remember that?"_

He shook her head no, and blinked slowly again as she continued to run her fingers through his hair. Just listening to her talk was amazing.

" _Barney's leading groups to hunt a little bit whenever we stop for supplies. He doubts they'll be able to find anything to shoot at all, after what the Combine did, but hey, it's worth a go. We've got a ton of mouths to feed now that it's over, even a shitty deer is better then nothing."_

She smelled like machine oil and dirt.

Another thing that brought him comfort.

" _Once you're feeling better, I bet he would love it if you could grab your bow and tag along. And…uh, speaking of food…"_

He felt her fingers running along his bandaged sides, feeling his exposed ribs and bones with mild concern.

"… _We've gotta get something into your stomach, big guy."_ He wasn't the only one starving, of course- the resistance had been very low on food since the Combine had cut off their rations- but being on the move as they had been, meals were few and far between. In the fog of his mind, he dreamily hoped for soup, or something warm at all; the mat didn't help keep the cold of the hijacked Combine train's floor at bay, although Alyx's heat was more than welcome.

"… _Hey!"_

Gordon blinked sleepily, stupid, giddy smile never leaving his face, fog clouding his vision and his mind. Alyx was a blob of color without his glasses, but he knew by her touch and voice who she was, why she was there. No, they weren't officially dating. They had a sort of…mutual agreement. A partnership that was more than a partnership. A team, both for emotional, physical, and combat reasons.

And it was in this way that their relationship was so simplistic. They fought together, they ate together, they drove together, they camped, guarded, lurked and slept together, and there had come a time in the past couple of months where they had looked at each other and known, and no words had to be said at all.

Gordon needed her now. And so she was there, keeping him from the brink of another rampage, calming his nerves just enough to keep him sane through the rampant confusion, and… oh, she was talking to him, wasn't she?

" _He-looo! Earth to Freeman?"_ Gordon let out a tiny, half-hearted grunt in reply, too sleepy and weak to sign formally. God, she was beautiful, even when he could barley see. _"Man, they really drugged you up, didn't they? You look like shit."_

Alyx ruffled his hair, and he drew himself closer in response, burying his face into her shirt like a child seeking comfort.

Mama bear.

Wrapped in Alyx's arms, the right man in the wrong place slept.


	2. Alive

The water of the showerhead brought Gordon Freeman back to life.

Well…He had been alive. He had been alive since Alyx wrestled him to the ground and he had awoken from the haze of painkillers and medication and tranquilizers, but hadn't been present. He had gone through night after night after night on a cold, damp train floor with Alyx next to him and people around him, with doctors shining lights into his eyes that were too bright and asking him questions he couldn't quite understand.

He was alive, but not _alive._ And it was something people could see, too; it felt like he was looking through a closed window, with people knocking on the glass. Like he couldn't open it to respond.

Like something was wrong. Like a dream. Like sleepwalking.

The blood and dirt and dust washed out of his hair, and auburn that he had had such a long time ago peeked through, dark orange as ever, slicked cleanly to his scalp and neck as he scrubbed it out. Gordon swallowed and eased himself awake, the water cold on his back and the tile harsh white and broken.

No more train.

He…sort of remembered leaving the train. The ride back to White Forest with the others celebrating, too loud, too bright. Too much for him, in a way; so he slept with his head on Alyx's shoulder, knowing she wouldn't wake him into the world, knowing she would keep people away, so long as he was ill. Talking was too much. People were too much. All of this was too much, and what he remembered about taking down the combine was too much. Too much.

And like a cold snap on the metal of a train, everything came flooding back, and he was stunned.

Gordon knelt down in the tub and threw up, trembling. It didn't take long for what little he had in his stomach to trickle down into bile that burned when he brought it up, and he continued to heave long after he had stopped actually being sick; then stood, bracing himself on the side of the shower, and shaved. Washed the rest of the blood and sweat and dirt off of himself. Put on his glasses. Cleaned and dressed his wounds. Got dressed into the clothes that he only sort of remembered putting out for himself.

Woke up. Slowly, shakily. Reminding himself to breathe.

 _You can handle this,_ followed shortly by _God, that light is bright._

He might have been sick again, or maybe it was just his dreaming. Might have pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose afterwards. Might have held out his hands in front of him and moved his fingers in and out, slowly bringing himself back to the present, reminding himself of his vocabulary of signs and movements, checking to make sure he remembered what he knew to be real and what he knew to be false. Pressed his hands to the cement floor. Pulled them back. Traced the imprints the tiny rocks and ridges left on the palms of his hands.

This was real.

He was okay.

No, he wasn't.

He wasn't okay, this wasn't okay. Gordon stood still and watched himself shake.

 _I'm not okay, am I?_

Was he okay? It depended on one's definition of 'okay'/'healthy', which he had to admit, had changed greatly in the past couple of months. And then, there was a wave of questions: _Was Alyx okay? Was Barney okay? Kleiner? El-_

Eli.

Oh, poor Eli. Not Eli. He wasn't sure if he would be able to take it if something were to happen-

 _But something did happen, don't you remember?_

Gordon gagged and shoved that thought out of his head. No. Not .

Never Dr. Vance.

 _'I couldn't be prouder if you were my own son.'_

He drug his fingers down his face, rubbing his eyes, his beard, pushing them through his hair, forcing himself to _be okay, damn it, you have to be okay, you_ _ **must**_ _be okay._

But in the end, he still felt sick. Sat on the floor. Put his head against the wall. Stared at door.

Wanted to go back to sleepwalking.

"Gordon?"

His head hurt.

"Gordon."

Everything hurt. _Go back behind the window._

"Hey."

 _You should have died instead of him._

The smell of dirt and machine oil.

 _How can you face her like that?_

She sat down next to him, and he looked the other way, towards the shower.

 _You could have done something._

"Look at me. You need help."

 _Is this how you repay Eli? After all he did for you?_

"Are you listening? You need to see a doctor, Freeman. You're sick."

 _I didn't mean to hurt Eli. I didn't mean it, I'm so, so sorry…_

"Gordon."

She took his hand.

He pulled it away.

 _A lot of people died because of you._

She stood, and sat in front of him, putting her hands around his.

 _If Gina or Colette had completed the experiment, this wouldn't have happened._

"Gordon, please." She was begging now. He never thought he would hear her beg.

He took his hands from hers, and spoke.

 _"I'm sorry."_

"Gordon. I'm used to combat. This kind of thing happens all the time, and it's even trickier because no one here is really…used to that kind of deal, you know? It's just…I'm worried, okay? I'm scared for you. Barney's scared for you. Kleiner's scared for you. We're all scared for you. You've been sick like this for weeks. We're just tired of seeing you miserable."

 _…Weeks?_

"And it's not just physically, it's mentally, too. You barley talk, big guy. You just stare. And I _know_ that's not you, I can _tell_ something's up, just…"

He looked at the ground, then looked back up to her, meeting her eyes for the first time since the tranquilizers wore away. Awake. Alive.

"I don't want to lose you, okay?"

He nodded.

"Promise me I won't have to worry about that anymore. And that means not doing anything god-damn stupid, either, I mean…god, Gordon, you're an absolute fucking idiot. And I mean that. No piece of paper from MIT will erase that. I don't know how you survived to the age of twelve. That's called natural selection, there, buddy. That's what happens to people who don't talk to anyone for two weeks."

That made him smile. And him smiling made her smile.

She had such a nice smile.

"Promise."

 _"…Okay. I promise."_

"Pinkie promise."

 _"I am not pinkie promising that I'll become any smarter in the field of not being a fucking idiot. You'll just have to live with me. And I'll have to live with you, little miss run into the literal combine headquarters."_

"Suck my dick, Freeman."

 _"You know what? Fuck you. I make my own rules."_

All at once, she put her arms under his armpits and pulled him up to his feet, giving his badly damaged body time to find his balance before letting go.

"So, nerd, what do you say? Doctor Visit sound good?"

" _I'm not sick."_

"I heard you hurl."

 _"I'm only moderately sick."_

"You've been in an HEV suit for six weeks straight."

 _"I am mildly severely sick. But only mildly."_

"Ah, I see, so that's what they're calling HEV fatigue now, huh. I wasn't sure of the technical term."

He buried his face into her shoulder, and she put her arms around his trembling body in turn, partly for comfort, partly because he felt lightheaded and sick.

"Don't puke on me, fucktard."

He pulled away, still struggling to remain upright and conscious.

 _"Rude._ "

"Oh, I'm sorry. Don't puke on me _doctor_ fucktard, _PhD._ "

Gordon looked at her through feverish, glassy eyes, and kept his trembling hands on her shoulders. She was okay. And if she was okay, everything would be okay.

"Aw, man, you really are sick, aren't you?"

 _"Or so I've been told. What gave it away?"_

"Well…" She started, pushing a palm against his forehead, "Damn it, Gordon, you're still burning up."

 _"My most recent research has shown that living in a metal shell that pumps pain killers into oneself for six weeks is not very good for you."_

"At least you're back to sassing me. And here I was worried you would never be a little bitch again."

Wow, she was pretty.

Alyx stepped back and looked at him, tilting her head with a concerned look. "…Hey, do you need some water or something? You look really pale."

 _"Not feeling too hot. But I'm okay."_

"Promise?"

 _"Promise."_ He signed.

"Whatever you say, Freeman. But you _do_ have to eat before you go back to bed."

 _"Hey, I'm worried about you, too. You gotta eat more than I have to eat."_

And then, something amazing happened.

It was cooler than any equation Gordon had ever solved or written, and he had seen some _pretty cool_ equations, not to brag. And this was coming from the guy who _really fucking loved math._

She kissed him.

Right on the cheek.

"I love you, nerd."

He had felt it coming, of course. They had done so much together that it made sense, but…

Hearing her say it meant more then made sense.

 _"I love you too."_

With the cold water of a showerhead and a kiss on the cheek, Gordon Freeman was brought back to life.


	3. Intermission: Things to do, places to be

The thing that broke other couples tended to be lack of communication.

But Alyx and Gordon had too much of it.

It was part of their mutual agreement to protect each other, maybe; maybe it was the combat experience, or the shared goals, or maybe it was just because they found each other interesting enough to pay attention to. But communication was something they had plenty of, from the moment they walked into a room together. Words, ideas, paragraphs. Dangers. Concerns. All passed without a word said.

 _"I can't stay here with you."_ She said. _"I can't just stand vigil. I can't. But that doesn't mean I don't care."_

 _"I know."_ Said Gordon, ghostly pale skin pressed flush to the steel table, body burning with a high fever no one could seem to bring down, being stuck with needle after needle by doctors asking if he could feel his fingers if they did this, his toes? _"Go do what you need to do. Just don't strain yourself."_

And so, when he was blissfully passed out into a semi-stable condition in a makeshift hospital bed, she smiled and left him there.

 _Love you._

The thing that broke other couples tended to be lack of communication.

But Gordon and Alyx had too much of it.

It was part of their mutual agreement to protect each other, maybe; maybe it was the combat experience, or the shared goals, or maybe it was just because they found each other interesting enough to pay attention to. But communication was something they had plenty of, from the moment they walked into a room together. Words, ideas, paragraphs. Dangers. Concerns. All passed without a word said.

 _"I can't stay here with you."_ Said Alyx, mouth closed, standing at the foot of the metal table, pale with pain from a gunshot wound through her shoulder, most everything else stitched together in a criss-cross of deep gashes and searing burns. _"I can't just stand vigil. I can't. But that doesn't mean I don't care."_

 _"I know."_ He replied. _"Go do what you need to do. Just don't strain yourself."_

And so, when Gordon woke the morning after, she was gone, and he smiled and slipped back into sleep.

 _Love you too._


	4. Bite worse than his Bark

Gordon bit.

It was a bad habit. He bit his nails, his pens, his erasers, chewed his lip, gnawed on the inside of his mouth. It wasn't that big of a deal, other than the couple times he had broken a pen.

But this was different.

In the country, on the highway, in the snow and ice, it was overall easier in the long run.

There were clear deer trails through the debris in the outlands. You could drive a vehicle; you could fire a machine gun and still gain about ten miles in a night of driving, just because there was space for you to move. If you drove far enough away from the last combat situation and stayed hidden, the Combine would reward you with a ceasefire, usually. You could camp- not easily, but you could, if you really wanted to- even eat, sleep, and start a fire to get warm. It was hard as shit, yeah, but you had room for error in the badlands. Maybe it was because it was just he and Alyx most of the time, or maybe even just him. Maybe it was because there were no trees around for combatants to hide in. Maybe it was because the sky was clear enough that if you picked a star and just followed it for a few hours, you would know you were going in a straight enough line that you wouldn't get lost. Maybe it was because of the trails themselves, which wound, yes, but were rebel made and thus wound _away_ from danger.

In the city, it was different.

1AM

The smoke was so thick you could feel the dirt from it sticking to your skin.

He breathed heavily, labored, lungs trying to suck out the 2% Oxygen from the air that wasn't gunpowder of some sort. The last gun he had had he had used for two seconds before he had to drop it on the ground, barrel empty, and pull out one of his own. It was loud as _fucking shit,_ to the point where the more shrill noises echoed faintly in his ears for minutes after they had passed. People yelling for medics. Combine radio chatter. Bombs that shook the ground and sent your heart reeling in your chest, your bones rattling in the suit, bodies falling on the ground.

But none of those things was what sent him curling up next to a dumpster, covered in dirt and blood and sweat, clinging to the empty rocket launcher pointlessly.

He closed his eyes.

 _Ooooowowoowoooooooooo_

The mournful moan struck his ears with a volume that made him sick to his stomach. Gordon, trying to keep himself from making noise (although however ironic) bit his right thumb, teeth sinking into the glove and pinching into his skin.

 _Wake up freeman wake up freeman wake up freeman wake up freemaTHOOOM_

Gordon's heart fell into his stomach.

 _WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ASH FREEMAN WAKE UP GET READY FUCKER GET READY_

Through the smoke, so close he could make out sickening pale flesh throbbing under plates of metal and screws, was a strider leg.

… _Woooowowooooooooooo…_

 _Ghosts in the ash._ The head spun, the veins under the metal pulsed not with blood, but with some kind of whitish puss that didn't move like it, didn't look like it, smelled like rotting bodies and burning flesh.

 _Nonononononogoawaypleasegoawayno_

Gordon's breath caught in his chest. There was the second leg, scrambling to find footing, rotating a full 200 degrees with a vicious snap in order to pick its way forward. It didn't look even remotely like something from earth, but it still made him sick to his stomach just looking at it.

… _THOOMooooooooooowooooooooowooooooowoowoowo…._

He couldn't even see the head of this one through the smoke, partially because of its size, partially because of the thickness of the air itself. It was sickeningly hot sitting so close to it, it just _radiated heat like something from hell, like a fucking furnace, a fucking fire, hot to the touch and oozing puss and rust—_

His thumb snapped between his molars, and blood seeped through the glove and into his mouth, down his chin, down his arm, shuttering, shaking, _wooooooosooowowoowowowooooooooo ooo ooo ooooh god please don't smell it_

 _Tears in his eyes and smoke from the flame, do not move freeman, do not move_

His index finger snapped just as easily as his thumb, then his ring finger. All the salt water on his face seemed to do was stick to his body like the blood from his hand and the pain rattling in his teeth.

 _Woooowooooowoooo….._

 _Was it in pain?_

 _Ohmygoditwassoclose_

As soon as the third leg hit the ground almost directly in front of him he bolted, back into the smoke, towards people shouting for medics and people dying under rubble and people that weren't people anymore shooting and shouting and chattering, his breath came hot, his hair stuck to his face, dust obscured his vision and he shot with no aim and no hesitation because it was so fucking dark the only thing lighting up the air was fire and guns and hell knows what else, fuck, _shit,_ _**fuck,**_ _**it was so fucking hot, he spat out a piece of hair that wasn't his and wasn't human, kicked pieces of bloody flesh from his suit, there was no room to fucking breathe here**_ he woke up, covered in a cold sweat, pointer finger in his mouth and dripping with blood from a piece of skin he was yanking off the pad.

He laid paralyzed with fear, listening to the strider song echo in his ears, plain as day, like he had been there not moments ago.

It did not exist, but he heard it. It was hot as a furnace and ran with puss and moved its legs in ways it shouldn't, but he only heard the cry now, and even that was something his mind had imagined, neurons misfiring and sparking at his panic, sending him signals that did not exist and would not exist ever again.

… _.woooowowooo…._

… _woooowooooo…._

… _wooowooo…_

… _woooo…_

… _oooo…_

His chest hurt.

… _oo…_

… _o…_

He pried his finger from his teeth, swallowing blood, trembling against the mattress. Forcing open his windpipe. Making himself suck in air that wasn't a thick soup of vehicle exhaust and gunpowder and dirt and smoke.

It felt just has hard for him to breathe now as it did back then. Struggling for breath, Gordon inhaled air and exhaled a sob.


	5. Not the answers you want

_Something was eating him._

 _Something wasn't right._

That was how Gordon spent a lot of his time in the hospital, when he wasn't passed out or ripping the skin off his fingers by accident. Something happened on that May morning at 8:53 AM, and he _needed to know what it was._

" _It wasn't your fault."_ Said Eli Vance, as he remembered, when he expressed his explicit concern around a campfire, bandaging himself up with Alyx sleeping near them. _"It wasn't nobody's fault, Gordon, you know that. It was just something that happened. Don't go the rest of your life thinking of ways that you could have stopped it from happening, because the whole thing was one big, goddamned mess. No one coulda stopped it. It wasn't your fault."_

Gordon bit his thumbnail and recalled the scene again, squinting at the ceiling. If he had developed PTSD from anything in the last twenty years, it would be those five minutes of _fucking crazy ass trauma_ that made him want to curl up and cry whenever he thought of it.

But he _needed to know._

So he started small.

He was there late that morning.

He rode the train.

That part was easy; there was an air of impending doom, yeah, but it was easy for the most part. He rode the train and he was half an hour late and felt bad about it. He saw Barney locked out because of-

He gagged, and immediately backtracked, not really expecting to _almost throw up over the memory of malfunctioning computers._ Backtrack. Rode the train. Late. Dogeball tournament, right? Wasn't that what the lady was talking about? Something like that.

He found, to his surprise, that those memories were vivid in his mind- he had just repressed them. Colette had double-checked everything on the suit before she locked it in to charge with hers and Gina's the night before. He remembered that. She had her suit off and her HEV harness still on, orange hair and marks of oil on her face.

 _Don't worry, squirt. Make sure you're harness is on tight; if you get thrown around a bit it'll keep you from smashing too hard against the side of the suit. Put on your helmet, check your med pack and battery, all that good stuff, you'll be a-okay. Everything's gonna be fine. Just relax and keep your head where your feet are._

He absentmindedly rubbed the indent in his right shoulder where his harness had left frantic scars and blisters. They had to cut it off him, which he knew was what Colette would have wanted ( _Make them pry that suit off of your cold dead body, kiddo, or I'll kill you myself. Don't mess it up. Worked hard on that thing)_ and to his knowledge Alyx still had it; messed up, bloody, matched the cuts and bruises and deep-set scars all over him, but it was the same model he wore in Black Mesa and the same model he wore on Xen and the same model that kept him from dying via impact during Combine rule and goddamn, he was going to credit that frayed hellish harness of shitty duck-taped seatbelt with his life.

…And he got it from his locker. Strapped it on over the tank top and pants they made them wear inside the suit. Clicked it into the right places, threaded it so it was admittedly a little too tight for him. A general misconception about the HEV was that it was like being Iron man, when in fact it was somewhere between being bootleg Iron man and being in a creaky, real-world shark cage.

Walked down to the entrance to the test chamber. Security guard let him in. Door slid open, two scientists in the docking bay, _who were they, what did they say?_

Gordon's head hurt, and he shut his eyes and directed himself back to the present.

Too much at once.

* * *

"Don't hurt yourself doing this, Gordon. I mean it."

' _We can figure out what happened. Don't you want to know?"_

Alyx shook her head no in response.

"Look, I'm afraid you're gonna hurt yourself."

' _I'll be fine! I worked on the project. I was in the chamber. I've been through worse.'_

"That's…not what I mean. Just think about it, okay? Suppose you did find out what happened. Are you ever gonna be happy once you do?"

' _We'll finally have answers.'_

"And they won't be the answers you want."

* * *

He kept looking.

Got on the train, got off the train. Late. Put on harness. Put on suit.

After that, he kind of hit a wall, like he'd reached the end of what his memory allowed him to access. Just a big sticker over the next ten minutes that read 'BLACK MESA INCIDENT' in big, bold letters, and that was what he slapped onto anything referencing that span of time so he didn't have to dig any deeper; and the sticker covered everything from that point in time to meeting his first headcrab on the lower floor ten, fifteen minutes later.

It was blurry, but he gave himself a bit of encouragement and waded in.

Five minutes later he snapped out of it, crying.

* * *

A week later, in the bitter cold, Barney regretted hunting at night with all his might.

He had done it before with luck, don't get him wrong; but that was when the ground wasn't so wet and cold, when his shoulder wasn't still healing after a rough shot from a combine rifle. Not fun, yeah. But Barney could manage, and he could manage better if he wasn't aching to go crawl into somewhere warm.

It seemed like the Elk had the same idea.

He huffed quietly, breath coming in faint steam in the forested dark, boots crunching softly on pine needles and undergrowth. That being said, Barney was an optimist. He'd have to find _something_ before he came home, and something that was bigger than a squirrel if they wanted to eat well the next day.

And god knows Barney wanted to eat something not freeze-dried.

As the night wore on-11:00, 12:00, 1:00, 2:00 – it became evident to him that he would just have to suck up his pride and head home, because at the rate his shoulder was doing, even if he shot anything it wasn't like he'd be able to take it back without help.

Pain in the ass. But he turned around; headed back through the forest he had gotten to know far too well in his excursions for food, humming softly while he went.

Warm bed. Painkillers. He could get behind that.

* * *

He jolted awake and knew exactly what the color of his suit reminded him of, it was the color of light and sound, the color of _reaching 105%_ and _We assured the administrator that nothing will go wrong._

 _The Antimass Spectrometer._

He had seen nothing that instilled fear in him quite as much as the anti-mass spectrometer, with it's looming gaze and powerful arms, with the way one's footsteps echoed when you stepped on the floor. When the doors closed- teeth hooked into each other with stripes that yelled _caution_ and _beware-_ it ate sound and killed thought and breathed fire, goddamn, could that thing breathe green fire, when the world strained under it's weight and the words _slight discrepancy_ rang hollow in smart minds with dumber motivations, _do you remember the morning?_

 _His breath hitched in his throat, his heart pounded. Yes. Oh, yes, he did, he knew, he felt it in waves and bodies and blood, not memory, because it was now an integrated part of who Gordon Freeman was._

 _He hungered for it, somehow. That tiny bit in him that really did fit into the "Mad scientist" stereotype, that wondered all along if it would work at all._

 _That still wondered, sometimes._

 _You're dreaming._

 _Get up, you're dreaming._

When he gained control of his movement again, he staggered out of bed and hit hard orange iron through the black gloves of the Mach four HEV.

"Testing…Testing. Ahem…everything seems to be in order."

He found himself trying not to look at it, like it would look back into himself and see his fear if he did. _Fucking monstrous thing, fucking beautiful, interesting, monstrous thing._

"Alllright, Gordon. Your suit should keep you comfortable through all this. The specimen should be delivered to you in a few moments."

Sweat ran down his neck and down his face, and he went through the motions of the experiment despite most of him screeching to stop. Climb the ladder, walk the catwalk, do not look at that thing, do not look at it. He wanted to go home, and home was not here; it was at MIT, sitting on a laptop in a dorm, thinking, wondering, doing math and reveling in the simple certainties of the universe.

This was not what he was meant to do.

"Now, if you could be so kind as to climb up and start the rotors, we can bring the Antimass Spectrometer to eighty percent, and hold it there until the carrier arrives."

He was terrified.

The arms moved out with massive grating and grinding, like a living thing. Down came the rotors, folding out of the ceiling. _Tear one off. Crash the system. Throw yourself off the catwalk._

The machine primed itself once the button was pressed; streaks of orange and gray against more orange and gray against green eyes, black suit, briefcase.

 _Do something, you useless fuck. Kill yourself. Magically get a working larynx. Something._

"Very good. We'll take it from here."

 _No._

He tore at the keyboard and the monitor. _Stop the test. Stop the test, we fucked up, we fucked up, we fucked up._

"Power to stage one emitters in three, two, one."

He didn't have to look up; he felt it. Streaks of gold and balls of light. Spider webs of pure energy at the speed of a nuclear reactor core, bouncing from the arms to the rotors to the arms. Stable, stable, stable, stable.

Stable until proven unstable.

"I'm seeing predictable phase rays…"

 _No you aren't._ The entire thing pounded in his chest like a marching band.

"Stage two emitters, activating…now."

The engines screamed, the light was too bright, the world yelled that this is not natural and should not be happening, and Gordon yelled _Stop the test_ and nothing came out but a squeak.

Just like usual.

"Uh, Gordon… we cannot predict how long the system can operate at this level."

 _Damn right you can't._

"Overhead capacity at 105 percent."

"Uh…it's probably not a problem, but I'm seeing a small discrepancy in…well, its well within acceptable levels. Sustaining sequence."

 _Stop. Stop it when you're ahead._ He couldn't move; he was frozen with his hands on the catwalk railing and his head down so he didn't have to see and his feet glued to iron and the rumbling infrastructure of Black Fucking Mesa, reliving the most frightening moments of his life so far and it wasn't even under the Combine.

"We've just been informed that the sample's ready. It should be coming up in a minute. Look to the delivery system for your specimen."

It was beautiful.

Somehow, he saw it again. He didn't look up, he didn't come down. Didn't push it in, but saw it in his head; the purest Xen crystal sample the world had ever seen, and it glowed under the light, too, absolutely _drinking up_ the energy, a physics miracle: something that, essentially, should not exist.

Nothing was right here.

Not the sample, not the machine, not the universe.

If only he had noticed before he fed the beast.

"It's not…It's not shutting down!"

The world breathed green fire, and Gordon stood still and cried, just like he had on that morning in May.

" _And they won't be the answers you want." Said Alyx, as he noticed something- a little piece of glass- skitter away from an explosion at the base as he was slammed through an impromptu portal to xen at the force of being hit by a car._

 _A sparkplug._

" _And they won't be the answers you want."_

* * *

About a mile out from camp, and Barney considered himself lucky as shit, and not only because he was going to be back before dawn.

Elk.

It was still a bit too dark to see- 3:00, 3:30 maybe? - but he could see it moving through the brush. Good size, too.

Barney clicked the safety off his shotgun and winced as the butt hit his shoulder. He'd had worse, of course, but he'd never really get used to the pain of the wound/burn hybrid that a pulse rifle left. At least they'd get to eat meat today, if nothing else.

 _Wait._

 _That isn't elk._

He cursed under his breath. Sure enough, he could make out the figure easier as it got closer. Stumbling, having some trouble walking. Looked like it was on a determined path, but really wasn't paying much attention.

Thick, ugly glasses.

Barefoot.

He lowered his shotgun and pulled out his flashlight.

 _Hell, it's Gordon._


End file.
